'Combat Dealers' on TV - militaria goes celebrity

Just a heads-up for UK members ( and I think it can be seen in some European countries ) about the new series 'Combat Dealers' showing on Discovery and Quest channels.

It's a not-too-serious 'fly on the wall' look at the activities of one of the UK's foremost WWII militaria collector/dealers, Bruce Crompton. It's very funny, and also fascinating to anyone anyone interested in Axis militaria and vehicles. If they do a DVD when the series finishes, I'll buy it................

Yeah, it's shouty in that Quest sort of way, sometimes wince-makingly contrived, but they plainly know their stuff beneath the bluster don't they, and my god the vehicles & kit on show - many of which are so familiar from shows etc.

'Bout right, John.
It's all the gear and personalities that we've speculated about for years, isn't it.
Very much a closed world, the high end collector (of anything I suppose), lovely to get a glimpse, even with the shouty Nat geo veneer.

The film is set during the last months of World War II in April 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theater, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank called "Fury" and its five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

Shut it.
We know you will never be happy with any film unless or until it's called;
"Something to do with the exclusively British Army view of the 1940 fighting in France & Flanders with particular reference to SS atrocity & general levels of BEF efficiency or otherwise. Complete with addendum on the widely misunderstood historiography of the WW2 BEF."

That film.
Will never be made.
NEVER.
Because Hollywood... hates you.

Martin Bull said:

Apparently tonights' instalment has a D-Day theme......I'm looking forward to it for the laughs : Mr Crompton and his sidekick are TV naturals......

Click to expand...

I like his taciturn Para side-kick, complete with NDs, but can't quite work out how 'Hus' fits into the scheme of things.
If he knew as little as his TV persona, I'd be quite surprised he lasted so long as an assistant.

The BEF doesn't exist to Hollywood. I would settle for a modern remake of Dunkirk though......When I win the Euro 10 times rollover I will make it so. As well as the 25 volume work on every unit in France in 1940

If he knew as little as his TV persona, I'd be quite surprised he lasted so long as an assistant.

I think a certain 'suspension of disbelief' is needed when watching ! Very entertaining this week I thought. I enjoy watching Mr C haggling, and I get a small buzz whenever they find something ( small, of course ! ) that I have in my own collection, like the late-war Para helmet and 3rd Pattern F-S knife.....

Naturally on the willing suspension, but you do find yourself trying to penetrate the TV blather.

I think Mr Crompton might be forcing wider cracks in the secretive world of high end vehicle-age with this series. Seems to be a LOT of better views of people's assorted restorations on the Internet. That Axis Friendface page is linking to some corking sttuff.

This programme has become a 'do not miss' for me....last nights' episode was especially good as it showed some of Bruce Crompton's European 'picking trips' - picking over piles of Wehrmacht 'junk' which included a very secondhand-looking 1941-dated Nebelwerfer. And watching his team reactivating a PAK 40 was fun.

It's the last one next week - then what am I going to do...? :zombie2:

On the subject of Americans making films about the BEF, it really should the the Brits that come up with a film to finally give the BEF their due.

I'm not being nasty, but maybe Americans see the whole 1940 'thing' as a bit of a 'cock up'. Maybe American audiences couldn't stomach anything made to show the Brits or the French in any other light than as incompetent second place getters in a contest that their cousins had to be called in to finish to a satisfactory conclusion.

If you want my opinion, (and you probably don't), I believe that American audiences simply could not 'get' something like "A Bridge Too Far", because the Allies did not finish the film urinating in the Rhine, (as Georgie Patton did), or ending up at the Berghof, (as Lt. Winters did in Speilburg's "Brothers in Arms"). Americans still want a happy ending, in the true Hollywood 'style', even if it is only Matt Damon and a few extras that make it through. They want to see someone come home to build highways, and make America into the powerhouse "Camelot" of the Kennedy era.

The idea that a film about Dunkirk could have a happy ending inside four hours is anathema. We need a Sir Richard Attenborough to handle and do justice to the subject.

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